Page 10 of Brexit

I blame the Euro sausage for all this Brexiting 

UK Blue Passports to be made in France after Brexit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43489462

Sums up this whole Brexit debacle in one headline.

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Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

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Can we not spend £120m more and have them made in the UK? Perhaps that can some out of the £350m a month we can spend on the NHS.


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Quote:
Jitendar Canth says...
"UK Blue Passports to be made in France after Brexit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43489462

Sums up this whole Brexit debacle in one headline."
Don't really understand why they've done this, but a bit rich for Remain voters to go to town on this the way they have as this is how EU contract bids go.

Not really sure why they didn't use the national security opt out here.


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Si Wooldridge
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Best bid went to Dutch/French company under EU procurement rules. We also benefit from this as we get work from other EU countries.

We signed up to this until at least 2020 when we entirely capitulated to EU demands when it was clear that we had no hand to play.

The only reason this went to procurement was because the work was put out to tender. If the printing was done in house (as it used to be) we could have kept the work.

There is no security issue. The company doing the work very carefully regulated and all final printing/photos/info is done in the UK anyway.

A prominent barrister (who used to work in procurement law) has pointed out that other countries might be more reticent about offering us trade deals if we are going to start squealing and reneging on procurement deals we have signed up to. This stuff gets noticed.

This storm in a teacup just underlines the screeching xenophobia, nationalism and deluded exceptionalism that we suffer from in this country (just look at the Daily M**l front page today). 

The govt. have been totally sensible about this to be fair to them.

As you say Alfie, I do not see what all the fuss is about, and anyway I usually put a funny cover over my passport, like this one, which either irritates or makes the airport staff smile :D

Quote:
alfie noakes says...
"There is no security issue. "
Apparently France begs to differ on this.

I'm caught in two minds on this.  The new passports (whatever colour they get to be, and that bothers me not one jot) seem to have been turned into a totemic issue, so the Government made a rod for their own backs here.

That said, we're still in the EU until we leave and I don't see why we need to cut our nose off to spite our face...

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Si Wooldridge
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Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"That said, we're still in the EU until we leave and I don't see why we need to cut our nose off to spite our face..."
It would be silly, but it seems to be what some people want us to do. :/

It's just people being people, and stupid newspapers being stupid newspapers. Ask anyone if we should spend more on public services and they'll mostly say yes, but if you ask them if they mind spending more on tax, they'll say no.

So politicians just tell them they can achieve it by efficiency savings.


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Si Wooldridge
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The latest on the govts. customs debacle (the 'max fac' option), neatly ridiculed by ex-Tory minister Nicky Morgan:

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I want to summarise where I think we are at the end of this session ... We are going to have a functioning but sub-optimal border on January 2021 where there will be a trade off between friction, revenue and security. It will take three to five years [to get new customs arrangements in place] depending on which of the two options [is chosen], but that can’t even start until a political decision has been made.

HMRS is recruiting about 5,000 people to make this happen, leaving aside people at the border.

The highly streamlined option is going to cost businesses £32.50, approximately, per customs declaration. That’s a cost of between £17bn and £20bn a year. The NCP (new customs partnership) will have set up costs of about £700m but could be ultimately net neutral [in terms of costs for business] if tariffs are reclaimed.

Just in this current financial year [HMRC is spending £260m implementing Brexit]. And there are 39 other HMRC projects which have either had to be stopped or significantly slowed down in order to get Brexit through.

I’m going to ask you an unfair question now which I strongly suspect you will not want to, or not be able to, answer. But wouldn’t it be a relief if parliament just voted for a customs union?
I note also the govt plan to use the M20 between junctions 8-9 as a contraflow area for when they have to park lorries for inevitable customs hold ups at Dover - right on my f***ing doorstep.

There is no solution to this better than the customs union. All other solutions fall foul of problems with 'rules of origin', 'grandfathering', 'JIT delivery',  'favoured nation status', etc., etc...  (google these terms for fascinating insights into the kind of info brexiters had no clue about but now pretend they knew all along).